Hi there, Reader — hard to believe it, but I've reached my 600th weekly guitar lesson! Thanks to all of you who've been along with me on the journey so far. New lesson below... along with a roundup of my favorite songs in 6/8 time!

LESSON #600
​Melodic Beauty of Eddie Vedder's "Rise"

​Click to watch free video lesson​

In this lesson I'll teach you to play Eddie Vedder's 2007 song Rise from the Into The Wild soundtrack. This song has remained one of my favorite songs of the 2000s — and I'm excited to share the various tips & tricks I've put together from many years of playing it.
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Eddie Vedder performs this song with a mandolin — which we can't imitate 1:1 on a guitar. However, it is possible to capture most of his melodic strumming by using a capo on the 5th fret.

That allows us to use common chord shapes (D, G, A) - which enables us to play some reasonably approachable runs in the first 3 frets. As always, I'll start simple and build from there.

​Find all my lesson resources for this song over on my Song Notes website... including my practice guide, a "Part 2" lesson, and a few play-along practice videos.

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ONE two three FOUR five six
​Looking for Help with 6/8 Time?

This new tutorial, along with ~15% of the other songs I've taught, are played in 6/8 time. This means we'll have six counts per measure, which almost always means we'll be emphasizing the one and four counts. For a primer on 6/8 time, check out lesson #558:

In addition to my strumming tutorial above, here's a collection of some of my favorite songs using this same time signature. Find a 6/8 strumming pattern you like, and you probably can use it playing any of these songs:

Here's a few links if you want to jump straight to a certain song:

• ​Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton
• ​Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis
• ​Catch the Wind by Donovan
• ​Norwegian Wood by The Beatles
• ​We Are The Champions by Queen
• ​Cover Me Up by Jason Isbell

Finally, on the topic of numeric milestones and my 600th weekly lesson, here's an "about me" video where I talk about how I got started with guitar. This includes me quitting several times, a few years of stagnation, and finally finding a groove in the mid 2010s. Sharing in case you haven't seen it, and are curious!

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As always, you all have my thanks – and I wish you happy picking, wherever you may be. Until the next one ✌️

David

Browse all my lessons at songnotes.net​